When Chris Brashear and Peter McLaughlin share a stage, you can safely expect:
• To see world-class virtuosity on guitar, fiddle and mandolin.
• To hear harmonies so well-matched that you will swear the pair share DNA.
High lonesome merges with wind-swept desert scapes and cool country canyons whenever the critically acclaimed bluegrass duo get together.
Call it a Tucson stamp on an old-timey tradition - seamless vocal harmonies and intricate string arrangements that convey rich Arizona stories of prospectors, canyons and wild horses.
On Saturday, the pair will share the stage with the Ronstadt Trio - cousins John and Bill Ronstadt, and John's wife, Jeanne Kresser Ronstadt.
"I always thought it would be a really interesting and fun collaboration, and it has been," Brashear said from his home in Amherst, Mass., early this week. "When musicians get together, they find their common ground."
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Musically, that common ground can be found in the five musicians embracing a sense of place.
• The Ronstadts' musical legacy stretches back to Tucson's territorial days, when John and Bill's grandfather, Fred Ronstadt, founded Club Philharmonico in the 1880s. In the 1920s, one of Fred's daughters traveled the world incorporating regional music and dance into her shows. And from the 1960s through today, cousin Linda Ronstadt has given the family worldwide name recognition.
"We basically grew up listening to music from our fathers and sharing it through generations," said John Ronstadt, 61.
• McLaughlin has been a mainstay in Tucson's acoustic and roots music scene for years, joining forces with Brashear earlier this decade to form the bluegrass outfit Perfect Strangers. The pair continued their collaborations after Brashear and his wife left Tucson, where they had lived since 1993, for Massachusetts in 2000. Brashear lived here while his wife was attending graduate school at the University of Arizona.
Brashear's Tucson experience is evident in his music, a marriage of bluegrass and Western.
"Because we were living in Arizona and have a lot of love for the place and the history, it seeps into our music," the 47-year-old father of two explained.
Since his move back East, he and McLaughlin are able to play only a couple shows a year. Their last Tucson gig was two years ago, he said.
Brashear, a veterinarian by day, also tours with Robin and Linda Williams of "A Prairie Home Companion" fame.
If you go
• What: Chris Brashear and Peter McLaughlin, with the Ronstadt Trio.
• Presented by: Rhythm & Roots.
• When: 8 p.m. Saturday.
• Where: Plaza Palomino, 2970 N. Swan Road, near Fort Lowell Road.
• Cost: $20 in advance at Antigone Books, 411 N. Fourth Ave.; all Bookmans locations; Grey Dog Trading Co. in Plaza Palomino; or online www.rhythmand roots.org; it's $23 at the door.
• Details: 319-9966.
